The study of the detailed processes of reaction mechanisms is important for many reasons, including the help it gives in understanding and controlling chemical reactions. Many reactions of great commercial importance can proceed by more than one reaction path; knowledge of the reaction mechanisms involved may make it possible to choose reaction conditions favouring one path over another, thereby giving maximum amounts of desired products and minimum amounts of undesired products. Furthermore, on the basis of reaction mechanisms, it is sometimes possible to find correlations between systems not otherwise obviously related. The ability to draw such analogies frequently makes it possible to predict the course of untried reactions. Finally, detailed information about reaction mechanisms permits unification and understanding of large bodies of otherwise unrelated phenomena, a matter of great importance in the theory and practice of chemistry.

Generally, the chemical reactions whose mechanisms are of interest to chemists are those that occur in solution and involve the breaking and reforming of covalent bonds between atoms—covalent bonds being those in which electrons are shared between atoms. Interest in these reactions is especially great because they are the reactions by which such materials as plastics, dyes, synthetic fibres, and medicinal agents are prepared and because most of the biochemical reactions of living systems are of this type. In addition, reactions of this kind generally occur in timescales convenient for study, neither too fast nor too slow, and under conditions that are easily manipulated for experimental purposes. There are a number of techniques by which the mechanisms of such reactions can be investigated.

Chemical reactions involve changes in bonding patterns of molecules—that is, changes in the relative positions of atoms in and among molecules, as well as shifts in the electrons that hold the atoms together in chemical bonds. Reaction mechanisms, therefore, must include descriptions of these movements with regard to spatial change and also with regard to time. The overall route of change is called the course of the reaction, and the detailed process by which the change occurs is referred to as the reaction path or pathway.

Also important to the study of reaction mechanisms are the energy requirements of the reactions. Most reactions of mechanistic interest are activated processes—that is, processes that must have a supply of energy before they can occur. The energy is consumed in carrying the starting material of the reaction over an energy barrier. This process occurs when the starting material absorbs energy and is converted to an activated complex or transition state. The activated complex then proceeds to furnish the product of the reaction without further input of energy—often, in fact, with a release of energy. Such considerations are important to an understanding of reaction mechanisms because the actual course that any reaction follows is the one that requires the least energy of activation. This reaction course is not always the one that would seem simplest to the chemist without detailed study of the different possible mechanisms.

The study of reaction mechanisms is complicated by the reversibility of most reactions (the tendency of the reaction products to revert to the starting materials) and by the existence of competing reactions (reactions that convert the starting material to something other than the desired products). Another complicating factor is the fact that many reactions occur in stages in which intermediate products (intermediates) are formed and then converted by further reactions to the final products. In examining chemical reactions, it is useful to consider several general subjects: (1) factors that influence the course of chemical reactions, (2) energy changes involved in the course of a typical reaction, (3) factors that reveal the mechanism of a reaction, and (4) the classification of reaction mechanisms. With this information in mind, it is then possible to look briefly at some of the more important classes of reaction mechanisms. (The articles acid-base reaction, oxidation-reduction reaction, and electrochemical reaction deal with the mechanisms of reactions not described in this article.)

General considerations

Determinants of the course of reaction

The reactants

In analyzing the mechanism of a reaction, account must be taken of all the factors that influence its course. After the bulk chemical constituents have been identified by ordinary methods of structure determination and analysis, any prereaction changes involving the reactants, either individually or together, must be investigated. Thus, in the cleavage of the substance ethyl acetate by water (hydrolysis), the actual reagent that attacks the ethyl acetate molecule may be the water molecule itself, or it may be the hydroxideion (OH−) produced from it.

The hydrolysis of ethyl acetate can be represented by the following equation:

in which the structures of the molecules are represented schematically by their structural formulas. An arrow is used to indicate the reaction, with the formulas for the starting materials on the left and those of the products on the right. In the structural formulas, the atoms of the elements are represented by their chemical symbols (C for carbon, H for hydrogen, and O for oxygen), and the numbers of the atoms in particular groups are designated by numeral subscripts. The chemical bonds of greatest interest are represented by short lines between the symbols of the atoms connected by the bonds.

Important to this reaction is an equilibrium involving the cleavage of the water molecules into positively and negatively charged particles (ions), as follows:

In this equation the numeral in front of the symbol for the water molecule indicates the number of molecules involved in the reaction. The composite arrow indicates that the reaction can proceed in either direction, starting material being converted to products and vice versa. In practice, both reactions occur together, and a balance, or equilibrium, of starting materials and products is set up. The significance of this equilibrium for the hydrolysis of ethyl acetate is that any of the three entities (water molecules, hydronium, or hydroxide ions) may be involved in the reaction, and the mechanism is not known until it is established which of these is the actual participant. This often can be established if it is possible to determine the relative amounts of the three in the reaction medium and if it can be shown that the rate of the reaction depends upon the amount (or concentration) of one of them. Under certain conditions the hydrolysis of ethyl acetate is found to involve water molecules (as shown in the equation above); in other cases, hydroxide ion is involved.

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